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Throw a little dirt on it, it's a "barn find." Find it in a shed, it's a "barn find." Geez all in the name of money. Boy have I got some "barn finds" for you.
It's the thrill of the hunt, the allure of I have something "special" that car enthusiasts dream about, sorry...
A barn find to me is finding an original car, unless modified "back in the day", that is not advertised for sale and you stumble upon it while driving down the road. At speed, you glance over at a garage or barn with it's door open and clutter all about and you can make out the shape of something special.
I know where there is a 65 coupe which is parked in a barn. The barn is also a shop but the car has been sitting in there since the 80s. Still cool to see everything.
I found my '61 on a cattle ranch near Columbia, SC in 2007...it was indeed in a barn of sorts. The barn doubled as a shop, you could eat off the floor and the tools and equipment in the barn were arranged meticulously.
The car was clean, ready to drive and in good shape. "Barn Find" ? Inquiring minds want to know !!
Like many other terms in the hobby this phrase has gotten to mean anything that the speaker desires.
Now if we try to analyze the components of a phrase like, "....what oil should I use in my matching number, original, period correct, barn find?"
I found my '61 on a cattle ranch near Columbia, SC in 2007...it was indeed in a barn of sorts. The barn doubled as a shop, you could eat off the floor and the tools and equipment in the barn were arranged meticulously.
The car was clean, ready to drive and in good shape. "Barn Find" ? Inquiring minds want to know !!
Like many other terms in the hobby this phrase has gotten to mean anything that the speaker desires.
Now if we try to analyze the components of a phrase like, "....what oil should I use in my matching number, original, period correct, barn find?"
The craze all started with the series of books written a few years ago, "The Hemi in the Barn", The Cobra in the Barn" & "The Corvette in the Barn". They're fun books to read, but now everybody has to have a "barn find". Now your not cool, unless you have a barn find.
Fortunately I'm cool, all of my cars are barn finds! My property was once a farm. There are 3 barns on the property, and my cars are kept in the barns. I guess even my wife's new Caddy qualifies as a barn find. She finds it in a barn every morning, when she leaves for work.
Sort of like opening the door to the coup to sell "free range" chicken. Even if the chicken are too fat and domesticated to want to walk around outside.
Barn finds make for great stories whether they're Corvettes, Mustangs, 442s or other great vehicles. We're chasing one right now, a mid 70s Vega with 36 miles on it. I know, that's about all you could get out of a Vega.
Our team is developing a reality TV series called Barn Find Fever. Our objective is not to buy and flip the vehicles, but to tell the story, of the vehicle, the people, and the barn. Learn more at www.barnfindfever.com. Click on "Stories" to read some of our trips into the countryside.
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The ads for these types of cars used to say "In need of restoration." Now they call them barn finds so they can ask more for them. People are paying good money for them.
Barn finds make for great stories whether they're Corvettes, Mustangs, 442s or other great vehicles. We're chasing one right now, a mid 70s Vega with 36 miles on it. I know, that's about all you could get out of a Vega.
Our team is developing a reality TV series called Barn Find Fever. Our objective is not to buy and flip the vehicles, but to tell the story, of the vehicle, the people, and the barn. Learn more at www.barnfindfever.com. Click on "Stories" to read some of our trips into the countryside.
Well then - I have a '67 GTO triple black convertible 4-spd across the street with a racing heritage...guess that qualifies as a "barn find".
Supposedly a "WS" code but I haven't verified that (yet)
I came across a 67 Vette this past weekend while looking at a trashed out 71 Vette.
I had to do a few double takes on the 67 because it was making my head hurt just looking at it. At first glance I said to myself cool a 67 with BB hood, than I stuck my head inside and said no its a 64, no a 63, no 67......
This 67 vette has a BB hood, BB rear end, 63 master cyl, 350 engine, 64 door panels, 64 dash (vinyl covered), half the insturment gauges were 64 I think.
Thsi car was in a car port so I guess its not a barn find.
My ears perk-up at the sound of "Barn Find".
I've never been in a barn. My 63 came from a barn (garage) in LaJolla Ca.
sitting in a barn now my garage.
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It's amazing how many old cars were just parked when they were used up from daily driving. Farmers would just push them out to the back 40 and leave them. We used to go on country road trips around here just to see what we could find. Back then we would find Model A's and other 30s-50s stuff all the time, but never Corvettes. We always tried to peek into the barns to see what was lurking. Fall time was good when all the leaves had fallen so you could see farther behind properties.
I found a really cool Ford coupe in the bush one time with a tree growing right up through the hood. Tree was about 8inches in diameter! Been there a few years. Always planned to go back with a chain saw and drag it out but never got around to it. Probably still there.
There is one 62SWC under a tarp though. It's been there 3o years at least, slowly sinking into the ground. Last time I asked the idiot who owned it, he wanted 30K for it, about 20 years ago.
Last edited by Kerrmudgeon; 04-21-2015 at 09:48 AM.
There is one 62SWC under a tarp though. It's been there 3o years at least, slowly sinking into the ground. Last time I asked the idiot who owned it, he wanted 30K for it, about 20 years ago.
That idiot's got himself one unique model car, there.
One of my 57's was a "barn find" in 1994 - found it in a dirt-floor one-car garage in rural South Carolina where it had been disassembled 14 years earlier, with most of the parts in boxes, and the owner lost interest when he was overwhelmed by the scope of the project. Most of the right parts were still there and it had never been hit, so I loaded it on a rollback and took it home. Two years later I was driving and enjoying it.
04-20-2015, 11:07 PM
Seems like everything nowadays is a "Barn Find."
Love Frankie the fink. 
